


and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

by lilith_morgana



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:18:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3388220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The splendor of lost hearts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt: 
> 
> _blackwall is in love with josephine from the first moment he sees her. she's refined, beautiful, proper - everything he knows he can't have and everything he thinks he doesn't deserve. but josephine is drawn to him anyway, despite all the differences between them, and she vows to teach him that he's worth loving._  
>  _secret flirtations blossoming into chaste romance, chaste romance blossoming into quick and rough fucking in dark corners - i'm here for everything. short or long, fluff or smut (please!) or both (pLEASE). i just want to see their relationship explored. class conflict! angst! secret love! scandal! all he wants to do is please her and be the man she deserves; all she wants to do is love him freely and openly even though her family would never allow it._
> 
> There were also a lot of bonus points/scenario suggestions that you can [find here](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/13275.html?thread=50592731#t50592731), and I've tried to include as many of them as I possibly could. Consider yourselves warned.

 

 _this we were, this is how we tried to love,_  
 _and these are the forces we had ranged within us_  
 _within us and against us, against us and within us_  
(adrienne rich - 21 love poems)  
  
  


**I.**

 

The first time they meet she's cleaning the floor.

It's a day packed with visitors and plans, occasionally interrupted by the arrival of yet another letter or a fuming lord or lady wishing to speak to the Herald. They are certainly blunt, the Fereldan nobles. _Barely nobles at all,_ someone echoes in her head, though she has never looked at the world that way, has never found it quite as static as she was taught. Even so there are traits that run through a nation, she cannot deny that, and Ferelden is duty and honour, direct orders and a lack of pretence. Travels and studies create such a world within you, she has found recently, such a library of knowledge and preconceived notions that might seem harsh but usually serve their purpose.

Josephine is just about to finish a letter to a wealthy merchant family in Nevarra urging them to consider a mutually beneficial relation with the Inquisition when she accidentally knocks over the ink jar and then, muttering a soft curse under her breath, the quill follows suit and ends up on the floor. The black stains on the stone floor among the scattered glass resemble a puzzle, or one of her childhood paintings in the garden where she would pick flowers and grass because she found mere paint to be too boring, too little.

She sighs, kneeling among the fragments and trying to avoid her skin from being soaked in ink. It's a fuss to remove even under the best circumstances and here in Haven they can hardly claim to have baths readily available any day of the week.

“Is the Ambassador in?” The voice coming from the door left ajar is deep and dark and surprising. She cannot recall any appointment at this hour, but then again the Inquisition isn't known for adhering to many rules. “The Commander told me to find her.”

As she rises to her full length, running her palms discreetly against the sides of her legs as though that would clean them from ink and the glass splinters, she observes the man in the doorway. He's big and broad and at first glance she thinks him tall, but he isn't, she realises as she takes a few steps closer. There's merely something in his face that makes him appear that way - a solemn look, an air of gravitas and seriousness. He observes her in turn and she wonders what he sees when she nods at him, her most professional smile in place.

“Then allow me to introduce myself. I am Josephine Montilyet, I serve as the ambassador and chief diplomat of the Inquisition.” She prefers the polite and pleasant approach even after years at court, years of tucking away the heaving sighs and rolling eyes deep into her own resolve, not allowing it to bother her. _An easy smile and a firm refusal_ , someone told her once during her training. _Conquer them with kindness._

The stranger looks nothing like a bickering lord that can be swayed by courtly tricks, however.

His face is unreadable and he's quiet for a beat before he nods. “My lady. I am Warden-Constable Blackwall, at your service.”

 

\--

 

The first time they meet, she's cleaning the floor.

She is a mirage in this grey little village, the most beautiful sight he's seen in a long time and he inhales slowly, watching her rise to her full length in front of him. That's no servant, he thinks, no maid carries herself like that, not even a lady-in-waiting.

She is a _mirage_ , a sign from the Maker he doesn't dare to speak to any more, if he ever did.

He had regretted his decision to join the Inquisition twice before they even returned to camp. Regretted it because initially there had been so little care behind it, no more than him taking a deep breath and shedding four years of exile for no reason other than the honesty he had seen in a fellow soldier's face – one they call _Herald_ , at that. Enough honesty - and determination, bravery, sheer stubbornness - to overshadow any doubt in his chest.

He had regretted his joining the way he regrets his life, with a thundering rage that rises and falls inside him, finds no outlet and no escape. It's foolish to be here, among the best and brightest. It's foolish and wrong and _doomed_ but at the same time it's the least wretched choice he has ever made. If he falls on the battlefield now at least it will be for a good cause, for a noble purpose pursued by a worthy leader and if he had not offered his sword to the Inquisition he would just as likely have died alone, died for no one and left nothing behind. Even if that is all he deserves, this sort of death serves no purpose and he would like for his existence to have some, at least once.

“The Inquisition will benefit greatly from the aid of a Grey Warden,” the Lady Ambassador says with a smile and for a moment, Thom regrets nothing at all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Warden fascinates her.

Josephine is masterful at reading people's intentions and purposes, at shuffling her thoughts and impressions around until they form a suitable explanation or suggest a course of action. There's a satisfaction in that, of course, given her line of work. Her intelligence is put to the test with every passing day, every meeting and each new face that is introduced to her and she passes with flying colours most of the time. Satisfactory but ultimately just a little bit boring because she is rarely surprised. Fear of surprise runs through all her training - as a bard, as a diplomat, as an ambassador - since the more influence you carry the more you guard it and the more you plan accordingly so that the walls around you remain safe and no uprising or unexpected turn of event can threaten the carefully arranged situation. _From sea to shore we tame the waves._  
  
It is not in an ambassador's nature to yearn for the thrill in being overwhelmed but it might just be in hers, Josephine realises this long, frosty autumn.

The Warden _fascinates_ her. In between work and duties he slips into her thoughts like a puzzle or a particularly challenging diplomatic matter, because he doesn't allow her to read him with ease - barely allows her to read him at _all_ and what little she can make out seems like the bare minimum or sometimes even contradictory, like an unfinished painting, or a book with missing chapters. You do not walk away from yourself without considerable pain, without leaving some marks in the fabric of the world yet it seems he has done just that; it's an echo around him, a faint shadow on the ground.

She wonders if he was a chevalier but the Free Marcher accent is too natural to be rehearsed, which complicates a possible history in the Orlesian knightly order.

She wonders if he was a military officer but cannot find any records to prove it and the Grey Wardens nurse their secrets much like an Orlesian noble with deadly deeds to hide.

She wonders if it's grief, shame or code that prevents him from ever mentioning his past but cannot find it in her heart to ask him outright and rarely has the opportunity, for that matter.

Occasionally she wonders, too, as the blows out her bedside candle and closes her eyes or slides down carefully in a warm bath, _why_ he serves as such a distraction.

 

* * *

 

  
“Ser Blackwall,” she greets him as they meet down by the merchants or the stables. Always the same pleasant smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Always the same reaction stirred within him. All the dark spaces in between her words and the name that isn't his own, that feels like an even heavier lie in her company, like he's damning them both with it. _You are, Rainier._ If life before he met the Herald in the Hinterlands had allowed him, occasionally, to hide behind his masks, Lady Montilyet instead makes him feel every part of his life, each passing hour since he fled Orlais suddenly running through his veins. It throws him off-guard, upsets his momentum.  
  
“My lady,” he responds and his voice feels rough, _unused_ no matter how much he speaks these days.  
  
He understands she likes horses; it's evident by the way she approaches, step by step rather than all at once, allowing the animals to become familiar with her scent and presence. An ungloved hand in the horse's mane, her slim wrist a slight curve along the withers.  
  
“My brothers and I would ride everywhere,” she says, softly. When she looks up at him again there's a different slant to her gaze, a small opening, and he wants to ask her about her brothers, her family, her _life_ but before he's even formed a reply a messenger comes along and the Ambassador is gone as smoothly as she came.  


* * *

  
  
  
  
They have tea sometimes, when Leliana can spare a moment.  
  
They have _tea_ , as though they are still in Orlais and the herbs in their cups taste anything beyond mint and lavender – which is a mildly upsetting taste though a vast improvement over what she had found in the chantry's kitchen when they first arrived – and their talks concern courtly intrigue rather than a world-shattering breach in the sky.  
  
“The Warden is... not what I expected.” Leliana looks out over the training grounds where Cullen shouts at a couple of footsoldiers and Blackwall blocks a training sword with no effort whatsoever.  
  
“No?” Josephine sips her tea, glancing at the soldiers and then back at her desk where there's another pile of unfinished correspondence forming somewhere beside the main pile. It is, quite frankly, a disheartening mess. She must see to it this afternoon. “What did you expect? He seems like a good man.”  
  
Leliana is silent for a while before she nods, turning her head slightly. .  
  
“He does,” she says and there's a little hint of suspicion in her voice that feels sharp and _pointed_.  
  
Josephine clears her throat and goes back to organising the letters in her head.  


* * *

 

 

Haven offers a heavy, impenetrable sort of winter and he hides in it, gratefully.

The snow keeps falling until it covers everything that dares to stand still, everything dead and living; all the living and all the dead and every inch of the village. The chantry is warm because of the candles that burn in there, day and night, and Thom finds himself in front of the statue of Andraste more than once, finds that the cold brings out the greed in him again.

“My Maker, judge me whole,” he mutters along with the rest of the crowd gathered and it feels as arrogant as ever, preposterous and raw in his throat. It's downright _indulgent_ for a man who doesn't allow himself much, who doesn't trust himself enough for it.

In front of him the Lady Ambassador stands with her head slightly bowed, stray dark curls bobbing softly up and down as she speaks and glances sideways at the Spymaster by her side. They are wrapped tight around each other's lives, he notices every time he sees them together. Long threads of a shared history binding them together. He's seen it among soldiers, people being moulded to fit against someone else until anything else seems impossible. When he gives his memory free rein he thinks, briefly, that perhaps he would have had the same relationship with Liddy if she had lived to become a woman grown. Then again, perhaps not. The Rainiers have never been personable people.

The snow falls outside and inside the chantry Thom bends his mind to the change of season in his own life, bows his head before the peculiar fate that once again paints him as an anonymous face in the ranks. It's a good purpose, a different kind of exile.

Later, when the bard's songs fill the small tavern and the tables around him get occupied by soldiers and civilians eager to drink their way to some peace and quiet, he orders wine and watches. Even before he came to crave it to drown out the demons in his mind, he enjoyed watching the bustling life of others, enjoyed observing the details of the ordinary lives people lead, take comfort in the mundane simpleness of it all.  
  
There's nothing mundane about this, however, nothing simple and instead he finds himself observing the formation of an army. There will be chronicles about this in the years to come, history books will tell their story. All these men and women offering their swords and bows, laying out their skills and assets in the hope of making a difference – it doesn't matter if they join out of fear or heroism, he thinks with that emptiness in his chest that only a lie can create; it doesn't matter who they are. What matters is their _effort_.

And at the heart of it: the Herald of Andraste – a Dalish, which no longer surprises him, with a massive sword resting in the sheath on her back even in here – and her Ambassador, sharing a drink and a meal. Their silhouettes against the wall, the low, soaring voices that blend with everyone else's, the way Lady Montilyet clasps her hands together and spread them apart again, telling her stories with gestures as well as words when she is not as constricted by formalities as she is in her office. The way her gaze falls deep and dark on everything in its path, the way it falls into _him_ , with a merciless force.

Thom watches her with an unrest in his bones but it's not an unpleasant one, merely a reminder of being alive.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Every place has a heart and soul, a _being_.

Antiva City is home, hot and humid, tasting of salt and flowers, of familiar streets and fully explored areas deep inside her where she's memories and ghosts; Seleny breathes flames still, the thrill of training and fine-tuning her skills like hammer blows in her head; Rialto, where her grandmother would entertain them during long, rainy summers and the children would run naked into every glimpse of the ocean because it was always _warm_ ; Orlais, all of it, is heady, hard-edged power and the intoxication that follows.

Haven is frosty dawns and elfroot draughts brewing all over; is _turmoil_ but at its core it's much more than that, something far more intriguing. Like the Imperial court it expects much from her. All of it, all of _them_ , counting on her to use her expertise – Leliana speaks the word so forcefully that nobody could think anything else – for the greater good, for the Inquisition. Unlike the Imperial court, however, this place lets her move without restrictions, lets her speak out of order, lets her be certain of success.

“Could you handle these representatives from the Imperial chantry?” Cassandra asks with the faith of someone who _trusts_.

“I want the Fereldan nobles to leave us alone,” the Herald states with less faith, but enough resolution of her own to compensate.

Josephine promises to do her best, promises she will see it through.

The load on her shoulders is heavy - as it is for all of them - and she prefers it this way.

Because she's a woman Antivan tradition bids her not to fight. Naturally, tradition means sod all to most people within and outside the borders but the higher up you are, the more you need to heed to the ideals, no matter how ridiculous or contradictory you find them. As though swords would be the only way to wage wars, as though wars would be the only way to wield power, as though power is the only thing that matters.

For years, nobody listens to her. It is, in fact, like they don't hear her at all. It's her _voice_ , her brother Antoine says. It's soft and calm, regal but not commanding enough, not sharp like a blade or urgent like an order. She trains it while she reads all the books she wants to read, reads them out loud in her bedchamber under her blanket while the candles are burning even though she ought to be asleep. Different voices: strong ones, deep ones, voices that resemble her father's and her grandfather's, voices that mirror her grandmother's rough edges and hard vowels. She gives up long before her fifteenth name day, doesn't want to morph any part of herself into something else.

It's her _appearance_ , her brother Laurien says. She's impeccable and groomed, always hiding hardships beneath cinnamon-scented oils and polished jewellery, covering scars and dark secrets under layer upon layer of finest silk.  
  
Eventually her brothers grow up and her power over them increases, but she will always carry their doubts in her heart, deep down, under her soft voice and smooth skirts.

Haven erases all of it with little more than a gasp through the frost-ridden morning that first time she steps out of the carriage and enters the village. Here her family name means nothing, titles don't impress a Dalish warrior nor a hardened Seeker and her Fereldan Commander. Here she is Josephine, Lady Ambassador, My lady.

Josephine falls in love with Haven because here she is nothing but commanding, nothing but powerful, her entire history swept under the carpets and into the dank corners.

And she falls a little bit in love with the Warden for his unquestioning admiration.

Whenever they speak – which is not that often and she finds that she regrets that, looks forward to the rare glimpses of him – he is polite and reserved, his questions few but thoughtful, as though he has been considering them for a long time. Considering _her_ for a long time and that thought rushes through her in a strange way, breathing a fluttering warmth in her chest. He doesn't question her experience, her knowledge, her methods – there is no trace of surprise in his voice when she tells him about her extensive training and her years at court.

Later, she will fall in love with the notes written in a steady, even, unbeautiful hand. With the flowers, too, she'll admit to herself as she looks down at the giant witch orchid on her desk. How he retrieves them she doesn't know, she only knows that he seems to be able to sense just what kind of flower she would want, what sight that would bring out a smile, lessen some unmentioned worry in her chest. There is something to be said for that sort of attention, for good or ill.

Later, a lot of things will pass between them and a lot can be said about them all.

But she first falls in love with the way he makes her feel like the only woman in all of Thedas.

 

 

\---  


 

As time passes and the winter confirms its hold of the landscape around them he's increasingly grateful for having been part of their war effort for so long he had time to claim one of the houses down by the stables for himself. The lieutenant who had showed him to the free beds had mentioned that nobody wanted to sleep next to the blacksmith but Thom doesn't mind. The work starts early but he's never been a late sleeper and he enjoys waking up to sounds of _life_ outside, sounds that don't twist inside him and make him jolt upright, thinking he's finally caught.  
  
Their lives never look the same for very long, however, and sometimes he doesn't even see this little house with its narrow beds for several days. Living out in the field is part of the life he chose – at least partly, at least some part of him – all those years ago and it's begun to take its toll on him recently. While he's not old enough for the fabled _old age_ to kick in he can certainly feel the difference from ten years ago, a new sort of weariness that sets deep in his bones, becomes part of him.

This morning the dull, metallic noise from the workers accompany him as he gets dressed and walks out into the crisp, thin air and a sky that looks like diluted milk, the kind his mother would serve sometimes.  
  
He stops by the merchants outside the chantry gates, hesitating briefly. Luxury isn't something he's born to, born _for_ , and whenever he's allowed himself to grab more than he's been granted it's made its mark on him somehow. Like branding fucking _cattle_.

“Ser Blackwall.” One of the Marcher women nods at him.  
  
People know his stolen name here; even after several months it's like a blade digging its way into his composure, slipping in. People know his name up _here_ especially, since he takes any chance to visit the building at the heart of the village. He delivers scout reports and messages, brings news and supplies or candles and flowers for the dead when all plausible excuses elude him.

The Lady Ambassador smiles at him when he arrives and he places small gifts in her hands – comforts, any comforts he can find in these dark times: a pillow, tea from Jader, spices from Seheron, sometimes a book or a new quill. With the Inquisition seeing to all of his personal needs, he hardly needs much coin beyond some to pay for the tavern tabs. He can think of no finer purpose than to spend what little that remains on this woman.

“You are too kind,” she tells him.

One day she pulls out a sleek dagger from her stockings, shows it to him with an unreadable expression. Her beauty is even more apparent – almost overwhelmingly so, an _ache_ in him - when she's serious and he looks at her for a long while, follows her movements with his gaze.

“I'd like a better blade,” she says without preamble.

He cannot pretend he isn't taken aback somewhat, though he likely shouldn't be. _Don't ever make assumptions about an Antivan._  
  
“My lady-”

“This has served me well since I had my training several years ago.” Her voice is calm, focused. “But it is time to replace it now that we face bigger dangers than I could have imagined then.”

“Of course,” he says, eventually.

That evening he polishes the hilt of a dagger – a replica of the one she wanted replaced, only better, much more refined – as the sun sets behind the mountains. All that remains is the faint glow of the Breach and the fire in the hearth that keeps him company until the metal is warm in his palm, the shape of it nearing perfection.

  


 

* * *

 

 

 

She's thirteen and watches the man that works in their garden, watches him kneel in the mud. He's not young, but perhaps not old either and his neck is so tanned it resembles leather as he bows his head to pull weeds from the path that leads between the Montilyet estate and its garden benches that are carved from white, polished stone. Everything about him is mud and leather, dirt and grass under blunt fingernails and a face that has seen too much sun and wind to resemble the storybook knights or devilish pirates of her dreams. She watches from her window as he works incessantly in the heat, pausing only briefly to wipe his face with the back of his calloused hand, his thick arm. There's a surge in her body at the sight, a warm flush; she has no name for it and wonders, long after she's stopped watching, what she _ought_ to call it.

  
  
She's sixteen and he's born the same year, born after the heir and the spare in a powerful house carrying a powerful name. They never speak of names when they sneak off, up and down narrow streets and in and out of abandoned buildings; they don't speak much at all because words are less important than hands, warm, soft hands all over her back, cupping her breasts like no one else has done before him. Other men will do it after him, she is young but she has never been naive and they are not meant for each other in the end, but right here and now she closes her eyes and tilts her head back and sighs as his mouth kisses _scandalous_ paths from her mouth to her belly.

  
  
  
She's eighteen and wets her fingertips in the dark bedchamber, moaning softly as the image appears in her head, always resting at the back of her thoughts. Master Donnello, Laurien's fencing tutor - she feels flushed just thinking about him, hearing his name in her own head, all these syllables of shame - who's too old and too fat and too ugly to serve this purpose but his voice lies heavy and hammering beneath her skin all the same, the idea of his hands running down her body causing her to squirm on the sheets, sucking in her lower lip. The surge through her body feels like nothing else in the world and ever since, every time he throws her a glance, Josephine clenches her teeth, thinking it shows.

  
  
  
She's twenty-eight and fully lands in her own body – finally, _awkwardly_ – one long winter beneath a earth-shattering breach in the sky.  


  


\---

 

 

He's fourteen and the girl is older by at least a few years, he can't tell how many. In the grey-brown alleys of Markham she's the sun and the moon, a ray of light crushing the shadows where she walks. For more than a year he watches her whenever he can, watches her long dark hair and her sweeping, billowing skirts that always look so clean against the dirty walls and worn-down stones. There's a birthmark right above her upper lip, a stubborn swirl along her hairline that makes her hair seem like it wants out of any coiffure she wears and she shakes her head sometimes, as though trying to push it back. He never speaks to her, never _dares_ , but once or twice their eyes meet and he feels the world shake then, a tremble all around him. When she disappears, suddenly, he thinks at first that something has happened but he learns later, through some of the older girls that spend their days sitting by the well near the silk merchants that she - Adrienne, the miller's oldest daughter - got married to a wealthy merchant from Kirkwall. _A good match_ they say. The following Summerday festival he sees her in the crowd with the merchant who looks old and bony, like something has drained all joy from his body; she does not seem happy in his company, does not seem happy at all.

  
  
He's sixteen and she's perhaps a year younger, is the neighbour's fourth daughter and he can't remember her name. _No one bloody can_ , she giggles. She calls him Rainier like it's a joke and he fucks her by the river, with the roaring sound of the Minanter drowning their gasps and moans. She tastes of salt and milk and he wonders, when she looks up at him under heavy eyelids with that smirk playing on her lips, if he is in love with her, if that's how it goes.

  
  
He's nearly eighteen and spends all the coin he makes on drinks at taverns and jousting tournaments and she's a competitor, a legend. Ser Aurelia, her name like something out of a tale, her face prettier than any painting he's seen in his life. It must be impossible, he thinks headily, to do her justice with a brush when she's a thousand different things at once, a force in the air and a curse on the tip of his tongue. After the victorious outcome she celebrates with the rest of them on the streets, by the low-hanging candle-lights and flags and he curls his hands around his mug of ale when he sees her kiss someone - an older knight, his hair greying - and walk away with his arm around her shoulder.

 

He's forty-six and nobody has ever touched him as gently as the Ambassador does: outside the chantry and out of sight, a bare hand in the cold, brushing over his arm with such purpose it feels like fire. 

  


 

 


End file.
